Garment hanger



Sept. 8, 1959 J.-R. KEARNEY GARMENT HANGER Filed Oct. 30. 1957 L40INVENTOR JOHN R. KEARNEY ATTY. I

United States Patent O 2,903,169 GARMENT HANGER John R. Kearney,Wilmette, Ill.

vApplication October 30, 1957, Serial No. 693,359

2 Claims. (Cl. 223-88) The present invention relates to garment hangersand more particularly to garment hangers of the type having meansassociated therewith whereby a shouldered garment such as a suit coatmay be supported in a natural unfolded condition while at the same timea counterpart garment such as trousers or a skirt may be supported in afolded condition. The invention is particularly concerned with a garmenthanger of this general type which is formed of one-piece twisted andbent wire construction and which therefore maybe manufactured at a costso low as to justify its use by commercial garment cleaningestablishments as a give-away item to customers for garmenttransportation and storage purposes.

Conventional garment hangers of the one-piece wire type such as arewidely used by tailors and garment clean- :ing establishments almostinvariably are in the form of a single length of stiif wire materialwhich has been bent into a planar loophaving the general form of a wideapex isosceles triangle with a hook portion extending upwardly from theprincipal apex of the triangle. The shoulder portions of a principalgarment such as a snit coat are adapted to straddle the hook portion andbe supported on the adjacent sides of the triangle 'while the auxiliarycounterpart garment, whether it be a trousers, skirt, necktie, belt orthe like, is adapted t-o be threaded through the loop and folded overthe base of the triangle with the base and its supported garmentsubstantially concealed within and enclosedI by the lapel and verticaledge regions of the principal garment.

Garment hangers of the briefly outlined above are possessed of numerouslimitations, principal among which are inadequate aeration of the innernested counterpart garment; diiculty of withdrawal of the same from thenested combination, particularly if the outer garment is buttoned;concealment of the inner garment by the outer garment so that it is notreadily ascertainable as to whether the two garments are matchinggarments or whether there is, in fact, an inside garment; the inabilityof the garment hanger conveniently to accommodate the natural sequenceof undressing and dressing operations, thus making it necessary to setone of the two counterpart garments aside awaiting application of theother garment to or its removal from the garment hanger dur ingundressing or dressing operations as the case may be; and the mutualdistortion `of the two counterpart garments, each by the other, unlessextreme care is taken in initially applying the garments to the hanger.

The present invention is designed to overcome the above-notedlimitations that are attendant upon the use of conventional one-piecewire garment hangers and, toward this end, it contemplates the provisionof a novel Jform of hanger of the one-piece wire variety which embodiesthe usual hook-suspended, sloping, shoulder-supporting wire lengths onwhich the principal garment may be hung in conventional fashion,together with an auxiliary horizontal offset garment-supporting portionby means of which a counterpart garment such as a skirt or trousers maybe hung .in the usual folded condition with the crease or fold of thegarment being coextensively supported throughout by passage therethroughof a straight linear horizontal wire length, the two garments being hungseparately, i.e. with the non-shouldered garment being supported whollyoutside of the contines of the principal or shouldered garment.

The provision of a novel form of garment hanger of the character brieflyoutlined above being among the general objects of the invention, it isanother object to provide a garment hanger of this sort wherein theoffset foldsupporting portion of the hanger is rigidly supported rela-Vtive to the shoulder-supporting portions of the hanger at a fairly highelevation which is not appreciably below the normal elevation of theequivalent part of conventional garment hangers so that this portion ofthe hanger will extend horizontally across the lapel portion of theprincipal garment in close proximity thereto and expose at least anappreciable area of the folded garment to view, even when a number ofthe hangers are fully loaded and hanging in close proximity to oneanother on a horizontal support bar.

Another object of the invention is to provide a onepiece garment hangerofkthis sort having garment-supporting portions which are maintainedsubstantially rigidly fixed in their respective offset positions whileat the same time the medial regions of the length of wire comprising thehanger is devoid of interlocking coils, loops or the like, thusresulting in a wire structure which may be manufactured at a low costWithout necessitating costly shaping operations. Y

Yet another object of the invention is to provide such a garment hangerwherein the extent to which the supporting means for the folded garmentis suiciently offset from the supporting means for the shoulderedgarment that the two garments are maintained entirely separated from butin close proximity to each other so that proper aeration of bothgarments may take place while at the same time the overall width of thesupported garment combination not unduly great.

A still further object of the invention is to provide a one-piece wiregarment hanger which, despite the fact that it embodies offset garmentsupporting means for a counterpart garment in a two-piece garmentcombination, does not dispense with adequate end reinforcement for thesloping shoulder-supporting portions of the hanger.

Another object iof the invention is to provide such a garment hangerwhich will give free access to either one of two counterpart garmentsfor the purpose of installation of the garments on the hanger or for thepurpose of removal of the garments therefrom and whereby the garmentsmay be so applied to or removed from the hanger with convenience in anydesired order.

Other objects and advantages of the invention, not at this timeenumerated, will become more readily apparent as the followingdescription ensues.

In the accompanying single sheet of drawings forming a part of thisspecification a preferred embodiment of the invention has been shown.

In these drawings:

Fig. 1 is a front elevational view of a garment hanger constructed inaccordance with the principles of the present invention and showing atwo-piece garment combination operatively applied thereto.

Fig. 2 is a front elevational View of the garment hanger with thecombination garment removed therefrom. i

Fig. 3 is a side elevational view of the structure shown in Fig. 2, and

Fig. 4 is a sectional view taken substantially along the line 4 4 ofFig. 2.

Referring now to the drawings in detail, in the illustrated form of theinvention the garment hanger is formed bfhrelatively stif wire,preferably a single length thereof. The hanger includes a curved hookportion by means of which the hanger may be suspended from a stationarysupport such as a hook orra horizontal rod in a clothes closet.Immediately below the hook portion 10 one end 4of the length of 'wirejoins a medial region thereof in atwis'ted region 12 whereby the ends ofa closed nonvplanar'loop 14 are brought together-and fastened.` A'pairof shoulder portions 16 and l13 diverge outwardly and downwardly fromthe twisted region 12 in the usual manner of forming theshoulder-supporting portions of a conventional wire garment hanger andthe extreme distal ends of these shoulder portions are turned or bentinwardlystoward each other as at 20 and 22 in the vertical plane of theshoulder portions 16 and 18 to provide two reentrant-portions 24 and 26which approach but do not meet each *other land which are turned or bentforwardly as at 2S and 30 (Fig. 4) in a horizontal plane extending at aVright angle to the plane of the wire portions 16, 18, 20, J22,24 andY26. The horizontally turned portions l28. and 30 merge with a pair offorwardly and outwardly extendingportions 32 and 34 which lie inahorizontal .plane and the .outer ends of the portions 32 and 34 areturned forwardly as at 36 and 38 and merge with a horizontal joiningportion 40 in the plane of the portions 32 and 34. i i

IIt will be observed from an inspection of Figs. 2 and 4 that thelgeometrical shape produced by bending-and twisting 'ai single wirelength into the form described above and illustrated in the drawingproduces a support for a shoulderedzgarment such as a suit coat whichYfollows the general'triangular contour of a conventional Vonepiece Wiregarment hanger. Since the portions Y24'and 26 of the hanger'which are inalignment do not overlap, interlock, or otherwise project inwardlybeyond the vertic al centerline of the hanger, the vertical triangularenclosure formed by the portions 16, 18, 24 and 26 and designated by thereference numeral 14a is open between the reverse'bends 28 and 30 alongthe base of the triangle and communicates with a second but horizontaltriangular portion which has been designated at 1417 which is bounded bythe portions 32, 34 and 49, this latter trian- Vgularportion being inthe form of a wide angle isosceles triangle which is open at itsprincipal apex. The vertical triangular portion 14a and the horizontaltriangular portion 1411 which are in communication with each otherconstitute the previously mentioned closed loop 14. The straighthorizontal wire length 4t) which constitutes the base of the generallytriangular enclosure 14b establishes a support for'a folded garment, asfor example a skirt or trousers. V

Referring now to Fig. l the downwardly sloping wire lengths 16 and 18are adapted to be received within the shoulder portions 42 and 44 of ashouldered garment such as the suit coat which has been designated inits entirety at 46, so that the shoulder insides follow the generalcontour ofthe supporting lengths 16 and 18 in Vthe usual manner ofsupporting such a garment on any conventional garment hanger. The lapelportions 47 and 48 of Vthe garment 46 extend vertically downwardly andare Vconfined and to some extent restricted between the horizontallyextending slightly diverging wire lengths 24, 32 and 26, 34 respectivelyso that the garment is held in a .generally flat condition. As shown indotted lines in Fig. l, the two lapel portions 47 and 48 straddle therestricted portion of the garment hanger occasioned by the two reversebends 28 and 30 in the upper regions of the lapel portions 47 and 48 sothat the neck portion 50 of thegarment is held uniformly open at aregion Well above the breast portion of the garment. Thus the garmentmay be buttoned as indicated at 52 if desired, or it may be-leftunbuttoned, in which latter case the restraining portions 24, 32 and 26,34 will to some extent frictionally prevent theA garment from slippingolf-the shoulderrportions 16 and 18.

As previously stated, the horizontal wire length 40 vis adapted to 'havefolded thereover a counterpart garment such as the trousers designatedat 60 in Fig. 1. If desired however the wire length 40 may accommodatethe positioning thereover of a folded skirt or the like. In theapplication of the counterpart garment 60 to the garment hanger, thesame may be threaded, so to speak, through the generally triangularenclosure 14b and brought to a position of .approximately equal mass onopposite `sides of the Ywire length 40 and then straightened on the wirelength 40 inthe usual'manner of positioning such a garment on thehorizontal bar .portion of a conventional garment* hanger. Although thetrousers 60 have been illustrated as being positioned on the wire length40 with the leg portion 62 thereof disposed outwardly of the waistportion 64, and interposed between the leg portion 62 and garment 46, itis obvious that the position of the trousers 60, skirt or other Yfoldedcounterpart garment maybe reversed.

-It -is to be ynoted that the transverse width of the `garmentsupporting wire length 40 is somewhat less than the overall transverseextent of the shoulder supporting portions 16 andlS, the extent of theportion 40 being only -that necessary to accommodate the width of thefolded counterpart garment 60. By such an arrangement no appreciableamount of excess wire material over that required for the constructionof conventional garment hangers is required -in the manufacture of thepresent .garment hanger. The amount of offset of the wire length 40-from the vertical plane of the two shoulder portions -16 anda-18 of thepresent garment hanger is not great as'may Vbe seen Vin Fig. 3, yetitisof sufcient extent that "the -counterpart garment 60 stands off, `so tospeak, slightly from the principal garment 46 for purposes of aerationas previously described as well as -to facilitate positioning of thegarments 46 and 60 on the hanger in any desired order of application.However the overall thickness of any `garment combination which may beapplied to `the hanger is relatively small and thus a comparatively'large number of the hangers to which such combination garments havebeen applied, may be accommodated -in alrelatively small space with thehook portion 10 thereof supported on a conventional horizontalsupporting bar -or the like.

In compliance with Title 35, U.S. Code, Section 22, a preferred form ofthe invention has been shown in the drawings `and described herein, butit should be under- Astood that the invention is not limited to thespecific disclosure made, and that the appended claims should beconstrued as broadly as the prior art will permit.

Having thus described the invention, what I claim and desire to secureby Letters Patent is:

1.A A one-piece wire garment hanger comprising a single length of wirematerial provided with a supporting hook at one end and having its otherend joined to the base region of said hook, thus providing a closed wireloop, said loop including rst and second wire enclosures in opencommunication with each other through a narrow restricted portion, saidiirst enclosure being in the form of va wire frame lying in a verticalplane and having the general configuration ofa wide angle isoscelestriangle including equal downwardly sloping sides and an interruptedhorizontal base provided by inturned aligned reentrant portions at thelower ends of the sloping sides, said second wire enclosure being in theform of a wire frame lying in a horizontal plane and likewiserhaving thegeneral configuration of a wide angle truncated isosceles triangleincluding equal sides which are inclined at a slight angle to saidinterrupted base and which are connected to the adjacent ends of saidreentrant portions of the interruptedrbase by respective reverse bendsand a continuous base lying in the horizontal plane of said interruptedbase, the downwardly sloping sides of the -frameportion of the firstwire enclosure being adapted to receive nthereover-the shoulderVportions of ashouldered garment and the base of the frame portion ofthe second wire enclosure being adapted to receive thereover a foldedcounterpart garment.

2. A one-piece Wire garment hanger according to claim 1 and wherein saidother end of the wire length s joined to the base region of said hookportion by interlocking helices.

References Cited in the le of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS CuscadenJuly 19, 1932 Russell et al Feb. 20, 1940 Waldman Sept. 21, 1948 DurrOct. 28, 1952

